What is where (modding visual elements)?

[midix]

Hi all! I came here because there are some things I do not like about Win 7 appearance. It is so weird - we can change border colors, wallpapers, and also the old appearance settings are available, but still there are so many things that cannot be customized - menus, folder actions - they stay always blue, that is so boring

I have changed the logon screen already (default is just too bright for me), thanks for tutorials section.

I have this UxStyle_Core_jul13_bits.zip downloaded to enable custom themes.

I have experience with editing XP style files using resource editors so I would like to try to mod windows 7. The problem is - I do not know, where which element is located - what files I need to mod to achieve desired effect? Is there any good roadmap, like - "if you need to change menu color from blue to smth else, mod this file and change this thing"? And I would be grateful for suggestions of any good freeware resource editor which is stable and good for Windows 7.

Also there is one thing that annoys me (attached picture): if I select some executable file then I see that old ugly icon in action bar - I drew red circle around it (is it left from windows 95 ? ) even if executable has its own icon built in. Is it some bug or something wrong with my windows installation or just a default behavior? Can I change this icon to some other - like the one I marked with green circle? And how can I do that?

Thanks a lot.

 

[midix]

Yay, I found a solution for it. Now I got rid of that ugly "unknown file" icon for good

Now if only someone could give some tutorial, where to find resorces for each scrollbar, button, checkbox, menu - especially for things that are different from windows xp... can I still use TGTSoft StyleBuilder?